The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze
The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze is the eighth film in the Land Before Time series. Voice Actors English Voice Cast *John Ingle as Topsy *Robert Guillaume as Mr. Thicknose *Aria Noelle Curzon as Ducky *Rob Paulsen as Spike/Spiketail Leader *Thomas Dekker as Littlefoot *Anndi McAfee as Cera *Jeff Bennett as Petrie *Tress MacNeille as Mama Swimmer/Mama Flyer *Susan Krebs as Tippy's Mother/Clubtail *Jeremy Suarez as Tippy *Kenneth Mars as Grandpa Longneck/Hollowhorn *Miriam Flynn as Grandma Longneck *Frank Welker as Sharptooth Japanese Voice Cast *Minami Takayama: Littlefoot *Rica Matsumoto: Cera *Satomi Kōrogi: Ducky *Yūji Mitsuya: Petrie *Sailor King: Spike *George Nakata: Topsy *Urara Takano: Mama Flyer Note: The Japanese voice actors are appearing so far. Plot When the dinosaur families get trapped in a valley by an ice storm, a visiting family of spiketail dinosaurs volunteers to leave since they consume more food than the others. Meanwhile, Littlefoot and his friends are taught by a new elderly dinosaur named Mr. Thicknose (a pachyrhinosaurus), who professes to be a know-it-all, but reveals himself to the children as having learned from secondary sources. In the middle of the movie, they head out together to bring back Spike, who has left his friends to be with members of his own species. Reception Although Steve Rhodes of Rotten Tomatoes and the Internet Movie Database, who is a frequent criticizer of the The Land Before Time installments, has generally given low reviews on the films, he had more positive comments to give on this one. For The Big Freeze, he said that Mr. Thicknose was a likeable character, and that the song "Family" had an undeniable charm, although he again expressed disdain that the plot and script weren't sharper.Steve Rhode's review on The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze www.rottentomatoes.com - Steve Rhode's review Retrieved on April 23rd, 2008. Aaron Beierle of CurrentFilm.com said that The Land Before Time series is one of the few children's series still worth watching, and that this film was one of the better installments in the series.Aaron Beierle's review of The Big Freeze www.currentfilm.com Retrieved on April 23rd, 2008. Jeremy Frost on UpcomingDiscs.com said that the film was leisurely, but with enough action to keep young audiences focused on the story.Jeremy Frost's review on The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze upcomingdiscs.com Retrieved on April 23rd, 2008. Dale Dobson, on DigitallyOBSESSED.com, criticized Robert Guillaume's singing voice during "The Lesson", and also criticized the "awkward timing" in the animation, which he said is a problem with most television animation. He also said that The Big Freeze could teach some good lessons to children, and also provides characters and situations most children can probably relate to.Dale Dobson's review on The Big Freeze www.digitallyobsessed.com Retrieved on April 23rd, 2008. In The Big Freeze's review on DVD Authority.com, it was said that the film would need a better voice cast, writers and animators.Review of The Big Freeze on DVD Authority.com www.dvdauthority.com Retrieved on April 23rd, 2008. Brian Webster, of Apollo Guide, said that The Big Freeze was essentially the same as the rest of the films in the series, but was pleased that it didn't go into depth with the issue of whether or not Spike's "real family" was the herd of Spiketails he had befriended, or the Parasaurolophus family (Ducky's family) who had raised him all his life.Brian Webster's review on The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze www.apolloguide.com Retrieved on April 23rd, 2008. Mary Kalin-Casey, on Reel.com. objected to "The Mad Song"; saying that it's one thing to bottle up your feelings when you are angry, but teaching children to pro-actively dispense their anger is another. She also describes the bonus features in the DVD as "repetitious", as several reuse the same music.Mary Kalin-Casey's review of The Big Freeze www.reel.com Retrieved on April 23rd, 2008. DVD Verdict.com's review stated that the movie was better than The Stone of Cold Fire had been, and was worth looking into as a movie for entertaining children.The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze at www.dvdverdict.com Retrieved on April 24th, 2008. Parent Previews had good reviews on The Big Freeze; saying that while it still focused on teaching important life lessons to children, as a movie it managed to pack in more plot than the previous The Land Before Time movies did.Review of The Big Freeze on www.parentpreviews.com Retrieved on April 24th, 2008. In contrast, Ben Pollock on DVD.Net described it as "Heartwarming is one way to describe it, but most older viewers will find it boring and cheap."Ben Pollock's review of The Big Freeze www.dvd.ne.au Retrieved on April 24th, 2008. Awards/Nominations For his role as Mr. Thicknose, Robert Guillaume received a nomination for Best Animated Character Performance in 2001 (which was shared with Zeon Davush, the overseas supervising director, and Bunis Yang, the animation director in the overseas studio. Charles Grosvenor received a separate nomination that same year for Best Animated Video Premiere Movie. In 2002, Aria Curzon won a Young Artist Award for Outstanding Young Voice-Over in The Big Freeze (as Ducky). This was not the first time she had done so for voicing Ducky, either. Gregory Cathcart, the music editor for The Big Freeze, received a Golden Reel nomination for Best Sound Editing in Television - Music, Movies and Specials in 2002. Songs The songs are written by Michele Brourman and Amanda McBroom. *The Mad Song *Family *The Lesson Trivia * Robert Guillaume, who voices Mr. Thicknose in this film, is famous for his role as Rafiki in The Lion King. *This was the second time Spike has ever spoken; he shouts "Mama!" when he falls into the water. *This was the first time that the closed captions performer is the WGBH Media Access Group. This group was in the VHS version, but the DVD version used the same SDH captions as the previous sequels; this film was released before the first five sequels were released on DVD. *This is the first film in the series not to feature a Sequel Roman Numeral on the film's cover art for VHS and DVD as the design was changed. For later DVD releases the cover art design was changed to match. *The first in the series to use shading digitally mapped onto the characters, as the result of a more advanced digital ink and paint system. *This is one of the only films in which the animators follow the classic sharptooth design from the original movie. *Rica Matsumoto, the Japanese voice of Cera, is also the Japanese voice of Ash Ketchum on Pokémon. *The music that plays in the background when the gang throws snowballs at each other is instrumental music from An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island and An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster. Goofs *'Plothole:' Ducky's mother said there were no other spiketails in the Great Valley but other stegosaurs have been seen in the Great Valley in the past sequels; some even having a few minor speaking roles. *'Plothole:' After Spike fell through the deep ice, Ducky incorrectly states that he cannot swim, and after calling for Ducky's mother, he quickly sinks. Spike can be seen swimming throughout most of the series, even after this sequel was released. In fact, in the series, he's shown to be just as good at swimming as Ducky. Character Debuts *Recurring characters: **Mr. Thicknose **Tippy and his family *Species Debuts: **Pachyrhinosaurus **Albertosaurus Home Video Release History *December 4, 2005 (VHS and DVD) *December 2, 2006 (VHS and DVD - 4 Movie Dino Pack (Volume 2) and 9 Movie Dino Pack) *February 7, 2000 (DVD - 2 Dino-Riffic Adventures) References External Links *[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301526/ The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze] at the Internet Movie Database. *[http://videodetective.com/titledetails.aspx?customerid=97135&publishedID=974053 The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze trailer at Video Detective.com] Category:Land Before Time Movies